This invention relates generally to the field of material handling, and in particular to improved material-handling conveyor apparatus for automatically arranging containers of beverages, such as cartons of soft drinks or beer, in predetermined patterns, sequentially, for reception and stacking on pallets.
As is well known in the art, the pattern in which containers are arranged in sequential tiers on stacks of pallets must be alternated in order that the stack of pallets will be stable and not have a propensity to tip over. It is known in the prior art to utilize various types of diverting and guiding devices to direct alternate container packages sequentially down one of a plurality of parallel conveyor lines leading to a pattern-forming area for the containers prior to their movement onto pallets. Also, the use of star-type turning devices, bumper bars, and diverters of various types for turning or rotating containers to a desired orientation as they are being conveyed through a pattern-forming area is well known. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,954,190, for a disclosure of star type turning device.
In the course of depalletizing containers from pallets on which the containers are oriented in different directions, differential speed control on conveyors utilized to receive the containers from the pallets has been utilized to uniformly orient the containers for receipt onto a discharge conveyor in a single row. U.S. Pat. No. 3,917,082 discloses a destacking and depalletizing apparatus wherein adjacent conveyor devices running at different speeds receive containers in overlapping relation to the two conveyors and rotate the containers to the desired orientation. However, there is no disclosure in that patent of selectively and intermittently adjusting the speed of adjacent conveyors so as to selectively rotate containers to a desired orientation in the process of sequentially forming groups of containers into different patterns for palletizing purposes.
The turning devices of the aforesaid type known and used in the prior art for orienting containers in desired patterns suffer from the disadvantage that the movement of containers is slowed down in the pattern-forming process in order to avoid interference with the next following container as a preceding container is rotated and delayed by a turning device. There thus exists a need for a high-speed, container pattern-forming, conveying system which can be automatically controlled in such a way as to form alternate patterns of containers for palletizing and stacking in tiers without unduly reducing the speed of the pattern-forming process in the conveying apparatus. The conveying apparatus disclosed herein has been particularly designed to meet that need in an effective and efficient way.